


Component Shuffle

by KalicoFox



Series: The Adventure Zone Oneshots [3]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, component shopping in neverwinter, minor OC appearance, misunderstanding what 'job' means
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-17
Updated: 2017-05-17
Packaged: 2018-11-01 19:04:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10928082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KalicoFox/pseuds/KalicoFox
Summary: Angus takes Taako component shopping in Neverwinter.





	Component Shuffle

Neverwinter was a decently large city. By the standards of Faerun, it was _the_ city; big and bustling and full of places that a small boy could expect to find reasonable amounts of trouble.

Angus McDonald _loved_ Neverwinter.

To be more precise, Angus McDonald loved the _city_ of Neverwinter. The people, on the other hand, he could have happily lived without. It wasn't that they were terrible people or anything, but apparently it was impossible for an adult to see a child competently handling the investigation of a series of grisly murders without thinking that the child was somehow _damaged_. Or something.

Angus didn't really understand the problem, but going to work for the Bureau of Balance had shown him a completely different world of social interactions.

Not one of his co-workers treated him as anything less than a capable person in his own right. No one tried to keep him away from the realities of what they were dealing with, or tried to stop him from reading the material that was _necessary_ for his research, or kept things from him 'for his own good'. It was so refreshing that Angus had spent the first two weeks of his employment drifting around in a cloud of happiness.

When he was assigned as the Seeker Liaison to the THB, he'd been sworn to do the best job of any Seeker in the history of the Bureau. Taako, Magnus, and Merle had all been really mean to him on the train, but they'd also been _really cool_. Angus was determined to make himself indispensable to the three.

Unfortunately, they didn't actually seem to need him around. Even flying by the seat of their pants they managed to scrape through any situation they came up against. The _one time_ they actually called on him for help, Angus got them in trouble for cheating and the Stones of Farspeech promptly stopped working.

Angus had been terrified that they'd died, and some small part of his mind had been positive that the Bureau was going to throw him out on his ear. He'd just lost them their only Reclaimers, after all.

But then they'd come back, bickering and biting commentary and just as wonderfully _awful_ as they'd ever been.

Angus had silently resolved to never put them in that position ever again.

He had to be _better_.

He'd meant it, after all, when he'd said that he loved them. It was a strange, twisty love that he wasn't sure how to handle, but he _did_ love them.

Asking Taako to teach him magic had been a weird, wild impulse, but it had paid off almost instantly. Learning from such an accomplished wizard had driven his studies further, faster than he could have dreamed. Sure, he had to do a lot of the theory work on his own, since Taako tended to gloss over theory with overly complicated explanations that didn't actually make sense, or with airy handwaves and "don't worry about it"s, but that was fine. Angus was used to doing bookwork on his own time.

Besides, all of that led him to where he was now, leading Taako through the streets of Neverwinter towards the Merchant's Quarter.

"So what you gotta know about components," Taako was saying, swinging his umbrella idly, "Is that there's the _standard_ components, and then there's the ones that work for _you_ , you dig?" Taako didn't wait for a response, instead continuing the absent minded lecture. "Take Grease. Some books say to use pork rind, some say to use butter. I use butter 'cause I can just transmute that shit out of whatever and it works fine. Also, pork rinds are fucking disgusting. But Sleep is different! Sleep," he said, gesturing grandly and nearly hitting another passerby in the face with his umbrella, "is commonly accepted to have three different possible components. Those are...?"

"Fine sand, rose petals, or a cricket." Angus replied promptly, glancing up just in time to catch the brief flash of pride across his teacher's face.

"Right," Taako agreed, pausing with his hand on Angus' shoulder as a riderless horse bolted down the street. Several shouting men chased after it, and after the entire procession was past he gently shoved Angus forwards again. "But I don't use any of those."

Angus frowned. "You don't? But Sir, I've seen you cast Sleep, what component do you use?"

"Technically it's _two_ components," Taako said smugly, "But the combination makes _my_ sleep spells stronger, so they last longer."

"What are they?" Angus asked again, and Taako grinned at him, then caught sight of a sign half a block away from them and lengthened his stride.

Angus tried to lengthen his stride as well, but ended up having to trot after Taako, dodging around other pedestrians as best he could while trying to keep up.

Ducking into the small, odd smelling storefront was something of a relief, and Angus took a deep breath of the familiar scent, then let it out with a small, happy hum.

"This is the Apothecary you said was the best in Neverwinter?" Taako asked looking around at the barrels and jars and piles of herbs and potions and components that filled the plain wooden room.

"Oh yes, Sir. Teakin _always_ had what I was looking for when I needed something of an experiment, or to help solve a case! If you need to restock your component supply, this is definitely the best place!" Angus hesitated for a moment, torn between wanting to tug Taako further into the store so he could show him the tiny flasks of liquid gold that were cool to the touch, and not wanting to invade Taako's swath of personal space.

"Hmm..." Taako's eyes half shut, and he took a deep, testing breath in through his nose, then let it out slowly through his mouth. When his eyes opened fully again, the expression on his face was oddly considering.

"All right Ango," he said, "Since you know the place so well, then I gue-"

"Angus?"

The voice was just as Angus remembered it. Deep, gravely, and somehow as inviting as a warm fire after a long day out in the rain. Angus didn't even bother to conceal his glee as he turned to greet the speaker.

"Mr. Teakin! Hi! How are you?"

Teakin, huge and grizzled and still wearing the stained leather apron that Angus had never seen him without scowled thunderously at him. "How am I?" he demanded, and leveled one thick finger at him. "How about this, boyo, how about this? How about you tell me why you vanish off the face of Faerun with no word to the wise about any trip or nothing, and then pop up all 'Hi Mr. Teakin, how are you?' ? How about that, huh? Where the _hell_ have you been, boyo?"

Angus flushed and carefully avoided looking up at Taako.

"I, ah... I got a job?" he tried, and Teakin's eyes narrowed, shifting from Angus to Taako.

"Really."

Angus tried to ignore the flatness in Teakin's voice, "Oh yes, it's great! I get to learn all sorts of fascinating things, and meet so many amazing people, I love it a lot!"

"You do, do you?"

Teakin's face had started to turn red, and Angus looked up at Taako. Maybe Mr. Taaco was doing something to antagonize Teakin? It was sort of a thing he did to most people, so-

But no. Taako's face was hard and cold. His arms were crossed, and his fingers were caressing the handle of his umbrella where it hung from his arm with an absently dangerous air.

"Um."

Now Angus was close to panicking. "Um... Oh! This is my teacher, Mr. Taaco! He's teaching me magic!"

Narrowed eyes moved back from Taako back to him, studying his face.

"Magic?"

Angus nodded earnestly, "Oh yes, Mr. Taaco is very good at magic, and at teaching. I can already do two whole first level spells!"

"Barely." Taako said automatically, "Ya still need some work on Sleep, boychik."

But now the two adults were relaxing; Teakin plopping heavily onto the stool behind him and leaning forward to prop his elbows on the counter in front of him and Taako uncrossing his arms and going back to using his umbrella as a cane replacement.

"Magic huh," Teakin said thoughtfully, then, "You'll be wanting components then?"

"That _was_ the idea." Taako agreed lightly, "Ango-Jango said that this place was the best in Neverwinter."

Teakin snorted, "Try the best on the Sword Coast. Me 'n the family grow 'n harvest most of our stock ourselves. Whatever we don't have, we can _get_."

One of Taako's eyebrows arched skeptically, but he pulled a slip of parchment out of his sleeve and stalked off down one of the aisles of shelves.

"Sorry for forgetting to tell you," Angus offered sheepishly, and Teakin waved him off.

"Don't worry about it, but next time make sure you drop us a line, okay?"

"Yessir!" Angus chirped, then jumped when Taako stomped back out of the shelves and caught him by the collar before dragging him back the way he'd come.

In the split second Angus had before his view was obscured by shelving, he could have sworn that Teakin was trying to smother an amused smile behind his hand.

 

Angus watched as Taako picked and pulled things out of crates and bins, tested the consistency of salves and oils between his fingers, and sniffed _everything_ as critically as any schoolmarm looking for flaws she might be able to criticize. In the end, however, one thing after the next passed inspection and was thrust unceremoniously into Angus' arms. When they finally made it back up to the front of the store, Angus could barely see over the pile and Taako had to put everything on the counter because if Angus' grip had shifted even minutely it all would have ended up on the ground.

And then.

Then came the haggling.

And Angus was stuck watching in half horrified awe as Taako turned into a _monster_.

 _Everything_ was in question. The spices weren't at peak freshness. The oil was slightly off. The scent in the candles was more rose than magnolia, and did Teakin _really_ expect to be able to get four silvers for an ounce of gryphon blood?

In the end, neither men looked satisfied. But Taako still forked over the amount they'd agreed on, and Teakin still wrapped everything up in thick brown paper, and even tossed in a bag for Angus to carry everything in, and somehow, as soon as it was all over, they were _smiling_ at each other.

"Ya got good shit here." Taako said waving airily at the shop, "Nice doin' business with ya."

"You're one hell of a hard ass," Teakin said, shaking his head and trying to hide his grin, "feel free to come back any time, as long as you bring Angus along. I gotta make sure you're taking care of the kid."

"Yeah sure." Taako agreed breezily, and swept out of the store, hooking the curve of his umbrella around Angus's upper arm in passing and pulling him along.

Angus barely managed to get out his farewell before the door slammed shut behind him and Taako's umbrella unhooked from his arm.

Angus managed to hold it back for half a block before he broke.

"Sir, with all due respect _what the hell was that!?_ "

"Hmm?" Taako glanced down at him, eyebrows raised questioningly, "What was what?"

 _"That!"_ Angus waved his free hand back toward Teakin's apothecary.

"Oh that." Taako turned back to watching where he was walking, studiously nonchalant. "Honey, when you're on the road as much as I am you learn a few tricks to getting the best out of skinflint merchants."

"But you never do that to Garfield!" Angus protested, and Taako snorted delicately.

"Garfield never implied that I-" He glanced down at Angus again, and his mouth snapped shut. "I don't really care about dealing with Garfield. The dude creeps me the hell out."

"I see." Angus said, carefully filing away the unfinished sentence in the back of his mind so that he could mull it over later, in private. "Could you teach me?"

Taako startled, actually pausing mid stride so that he could look at Angus head on.

"What?"

"Will you teach me to bargain?" Angus said patiently, "Obviously it's a skill I'm going to need in the future, and if you teach me, then I can go and get whatever components that we both need if you can't for some reason, and-"

"Yeah sure." Taako interrupted, "But later. Not now, yeah? We've already got all the shit we need, so we should head back before the idiots manage to walk off the edge of the goddamn moon or something."

"Yes Sir!" Angus agreed happily, and fell in step with Taako, trying not to grin when he noticed that the elf had shortened his stride so that the two of them could walk side by side.


End file.
